Dr. Becky Sage, CEO of iSci, is a Winner at the Innovate UK Infocus Awards

Dr. Becky Sage, CEO of iSci, is a Winner at the Innovate UK Infocus Awards

Interactive Scientific (iSci) and the Nano Simbox team are proud to announce Dr. Becky Sage, CEO of iSci, as the winner of the Innovate UK infocus awards, which seek to support inspiring women in innovation today and tomorrow,for the category ofEnabling and Emerging Technologies.

Dr. Becky Sage is delighted to receive this prestigious award and in doing so, takes advantage of the support package and £50,000 grant it offers, to achieve major impact with her company Interactive Scientific and their latest product, Nano Simbox. This award is important to Dr. Sage as she has experienced very little exposure to other women who are successfully running businesses in male-dominated science and technology environments, this award and the strong female mentor programme will go a long way to changing that.

Innovate UK agree that though the UK university landscape is typified by high numbers of female graduates, and the majority of the country’s most educated workforce is female, women remain underrepresented in many key industries. Indeed, the 2016 Infocus campaign launched following an analysis of 8,566 historic funding applications, highlighting that there is little difference in the quality of applications submitted by women and men, yet just 1 in 7 applications (14%) for funding were from women.

Dr. Ruth McKernan CBE and Chief Executive of Innovate UK says: ‘There are so many talented women with great business ideas. The UK economy would be improved by a better gender balance in our entrepreneurs and business leaders. 2016 has been a ground-breaking year for us, and I hope that in supporting and telling the stories of our finalists and winners, we can inspire others to succeed.’

Becky is passionate about Nano Simbox (NSB), a fun and interactive tool that puts the dynamic world of wiggling and jiggling atoms and molecules into the hands of students. The team behind Nano Simbox recognise that a step change is required in the way we, as a whole society, engage with global challenges, such as climate change mitigation, combatting antimicrobial resistance and supplying clean water access for all. Her vision is to create a new scientifc ecosystem based around a software platform (NSB) that is designed visually, socially and experientially to change the way people think about and interact with globally impacting scientific challenges.

NSB is currently in development and a teaser app will be released at BETT 2017 in January, the full platform will be released to a limited number of schools in autumn 2017. For the opportunity to be one of the first schools to use it, please get in touch at info@interactivescientific.com . In the meantime, school workshops will be launched in the New Year, the details of which will be found at www.nanosimbox.com once available.

The support package for this award which includes mentoring, media training, investor preparation and training in developing business models, will aid Becky and the team in their progress as an innovative business. Although her skills as an individual will undoubtedly be nurtured, she recognises the success of Nano Simbox is very much due to the efforts of her integrated and talented team.